You might not typically associate discomfort with a trip to the British Museum, that stately bastion of culture and history. Yet the ‘Unfiltered History Tour’ – an award-winning guerrilla project developed by the inventive minds at Dentsu Webchutney – does just that.1
Using Instagram Augmented Reality filters, visitors can scan the museum’s more, shall we say, ‘disputed’ artefacts and watch as they are digitally teleported back to their countries of origin. Not only do these artefacts return to their original homes before your very eyes, but visceral moments from their pasts are recounted by experts.
It’s an experience deliberately designed to make the viewer uncomfortable. And therein lies its brilliance. Instead of lulling us into a passive reverie, this use of technology unsettles us, forcing us to confront history in all its messy, unvarnished truth.
The question is, should this instructive discomfort find its way into the hospitality industry?
Yes, I know. Hospitality, the very domain of warmth, comfort, and escape, seems the least likely bedfellow for technology-driven disquiet. After all, who wants to be reminded of the darker chapters of history while sipping a martini by the pool? Yet, in an era where we are increasingly questioning the stories behind the places we visit, perhaps the time has come for an ‘unfiltered history tour’ of hospitality destinations.
Imagine arriving at a famous landmark, perhaps the resplendent Palace of Versailles or Angkor Wat, only to be gently nudged into a deeper narrative. Instead of having these places airbrushed into the stuff of glossy travel brochures, you’re invited to learn the full history, warts and all. The conquests, the colonialism, the socio-political tensions that shaped them. It’s not about preaching or spoiling your holiday mood, but enriching your understanding of the world and its complexities.
After all, travelling is about expanding one’s horizons, is it not? Why, then, shouldn’t that expansion include our intellectual and emotional understanding of the places we visit? In much the same way the ‘Unfiltered History Tour’ brings disputed artefacts to life, technology in the form of Augmented Reality or AI could offer travellers a way to engage with the real stories behind their destinations: not the prettified, curated versions, but the human tales in all their unvarnished candour.
Now, this is not to suggest that your holiday should morph into a moralising lecture. No one wants their much-needed escape to feel like a classroom. But for those with curious minds – and most travellers do fall into that category – such a tool could be invaluable.
For example, visiting Mount Rushmore offers a chance to admire a remarkable feat of engineering, but it also opens a window into the deeper, often overlooked history of the land. For the Lakota Sioux tribe, the site holds sacred significance, and its transformation into a monument without their consent is a complex part of American history.
Similarly, when exploring the Alhambra, one is struck by its breathtaking beauty and the grandeur of Islamic art and architecture. Yet its history, particularly after the reconquest of Granada in 1492, adds layers of meaning to the site. Originally a symbol of cultural fusion and tolerance, the Alhambra later became tied to a more somber chapter during the Spanish Inquisition.
What these stories reveal is not just the grandeur of these landmarks, but the complex, and sometimes uncomfortable, truths that have shaped them. Truths that technology can bring to life in remarkably interactive and emotive ways.
All of which leads us to pose a rather counterintuitive question: could technology’s greatest role in hospitality be more than smoothing out the booking process or personalising your room service preferences? Perhaps, just perhaps, its true function is to help us expand not only our sense of ease but our intellectual and empathetic capacities. In making us a little uncomfortable, technology could offer us the most enriching travel experience of all.
Insignia Worldwide crafts new realities at the intersections of strategy and storytelling, by challenging what is humanly possible and creating what is Impossibly Human.TM
1 dandad.org